Wireless devices provide for various communication modes such as voice, video, data, and possibly otherwise. The operation of the communications network determines how well these modes function. Certain modes suffer more than others from network problems such as latency and missing data. For a first example and without limitation, voice communication over a network might become degraded if the network operates slowly enough that one user can hear a time delay while talking to another. For a second example and without limitation, with digital communication of documents, latency might not be of particularly strong importance, but data communication is considered degraded if any data goes missing. In wireless communication systems, problems can be more acute when wireless stations transition between different access points, or when they are subject to one or more forms of interference. Interference might include natural signal losses when moving away from an access point, interference from access points operating on the same frequency, and other forms.
Messages sent in networks often have a QoS (quality of service) associated with them. In use on the Internet, there are typically at least 4 classes of QoS: VO (voice), VI (video), BE (best efforts), and BG (background), from highest priority to lowest priority. Routing standards often provide that each AP (access point) waits an amount of time after the communication channel becomes clear, then begins transmitting if the communication channel has not already been seized by another AP. Determining an optimal amount of time to wait so as to provide proper QoS, while losing minimal bandwidth to unnecessary waiting, might involve selecting as many as 32 separate parameters for each AP (4 classes of QoS times 4 parameters, times 2 because uplink and downlink parameters might be different). Each level of QoS has a distinct set of characteristics associated with traffic usually associated with that QoS.
One known problem is that two distinct classes of messages, each with a distinct QoS, might interfere with each other and cause degradation of one or both. For example and without limitation, as noted above, voice messages generally presuppose low latency, while data messages generally presuppose low bit error rates. Known methods of approaching this problem include separating each distinct class of messages, each associated with a distinct QoS, into a separate queue for reception or transmission. While this method generally has the feature of separate treatment of distinct classes of messages, it has the drawback that a 1st class of messages (e.g., voice) might be subject to degradation due to a prevalence of a 2nd class of messages (e.g., data), as the latter type of messages might be significantly longer, and thus take more time even if assigned relatively lower priority.